The Mass responses: the dialogue

The people's parts of a Latin Mass are short, fixed and few. Here is each one as the Missal prints it, with a literal English line and the grammar that makes it work. Most of that grammar is cases.

"1962" is the 1962 Missal, the Traditional Latin Mass. "Current" is the Roman Missal of Paul VI said in Latin, the Novus Ordo, now in its third edition (2002, reissued 2008). Books of the 1962 Missal print j (justum for iustum); the words are the same.

Dominus vobiscum: et cum spiritu tuo

• Priest: Dominus vobiscum. - The Lord with you.
• People: Et cum spiritu tuo. - And with your spirit.

Neither line has a verb, so the Latin never says whether this is a statement (the Lord is with you) or a wish (may the Lord be with you).

Cum takes the ablative. Spiritus is fourth declension, whose ablative singular ends in -u, and tuo agrees with it:

Vobiscum is cum again, stuck on the end of vobis: with you (all). Latin does the same with every personal pronoun, as in mecum, with me.

The words come from Paul, who ends a letter with them (2 Timothy 4:22, Vulgate):

Dominus Iesus Christus cum spiritu tuo.

The Lord Jesus Christ with your spirit.

Dominus vobiscum is said only by a bishop, priest or deacon. More on the fourth declension: the fourth and fifth declensions.

Deo gratias and Amen

• Deo gratias. - Thanks to God.

Two words, two cases, and English hides both behind one word. Deo is dative, the one who receives; gratias is accusative plural, the thing given. Supply a verb such as agimus and it is Deo gratias agimus, we give thanks to God.

It answers three lines:

In the 1962 Missal Benedicamus Domino, let us bless the Lord, replaces Ite, missa est when another rite follows, and gets the same answer.

Amen is not Latin at all. It is Hebrew, from a root meaning firm or sure, and the liturgy kept it untranslated. It does not decline, so it never changes: it answers every prayer that ends Per omnia saecula saeculorum, for ever and ever.

Sursum corda: the preface dialogue

Corda is the trap. To an English eye -a looks feminine singular, but cor, cordis is a third-declension neuter, and neuter plurals end in -a in the nominative and accusative:

Ad takes the accusative (Dominum). Agamus is the present subjunctive of ago, the "let us" form: let us give thanks. Dignum et iustum are neuter because the subject is an unstated "it": it is fitting and just. See the subjunctive for agamus.

Habemus ad Dominum has no object: the official English, "We lift them up to the Lord", supplies one.